In 1937, a man named Ethan Crane took revenge for the rape of a young girl by murdering her assailants. After being shot down by the police, Supreme was taken to prison on a life sentence. While incarcerated, Crane was given an opportunity to take part in a government experiment that could either kill him or give him super-powers. Crane died like the previous subjects, but, after his body was disposed of, he returned to life. Due to his ressurection, Crane was not only physically reborn, but mentally and spiritually as well, seeing the world as a strange, new place. He then met the priest Father Beam who gave him a place to live as Crane discovered that the experiment succeeded in giving him amazing new powers.

He took on the name Supreme and became a hero. Eventually he decided to do good by helping the allies in World War II. Upon returning home, Supreme learned that he may not have the control that he once thought he did when he accidentally killed Father Beam with his powers. Celebrated across the Earth as a hero, he decided to leave the Earth claiming that it was because his "work was done", but in actuality was filled with shame and fear over what he was capable of.

For decades, Supreme fought countless alien threats in space, assisting the alien race known as the Kalyptans and trying to forget the mistakes he made on Earth. Once he finally returned to Earth in 1992, he found himself on a greatly changed world, where super-humans were far more numerous, with entire super-teams such as Heavy Mettle and Youngblood. After his return, he also made several references to being a god, though it is not sure whether this was a metaphor or if he truly believed he was an ancient god. For a time, Supreme was the leader of Heavy Mettle, but after defeating the villain Khrome, he moved on.

On his own, Supreme fought the Norse God Thor over the possession of his magic hammer Mjolnir, which Supreme later acquired. After many battles, Supreme became an important member of the superhero community, before seemingly being killed by the villain named Lord Chapel during his attack on humanity. In fact, Supreme actually was transported to an alternate reality and found himself unable to return.

Meanwhile, a figure named Enigma had cloned Supreme some years before so that he could release him to protect the Earth in the event that Supreme died. Enigma left him in another dimension until Supreme's seeming death and acted in his place until the original Supreme could return to his Earth. When Supreme returned, he was without his powers and had to face the clone Supreme, who had become much more dangerous. During the fight, the two switched bodies and Supreme's powers were returned to him.

Soon after, Supreme teamed with a number of other superheroes to defeat the Norse god Loki, who had been threatening reality itself and they were victorious, leaving Supreme triumphant.

Supreme would return to Earth only to arrive in a strange place called the Supremacy. The learned that the Supremacy was a city where everyone was an alternate reality version of himself, many representing different genres and styles of superheroes. There he is informed that when he returns to Earth, reality for him will have changed, bearing little resemblance to his past life. He was then thrown into his new reality, where he quickly regained the memories that came with his life as it happened in this new reality.

In this universe, his past and origins proved to be radically different.